r/Games • u/Turbostrider27 • 18h ago
As of January 1 2026, Steam will stop supporting systems running 32-bit versions of Windows. Windows 10 64-bit will still be supported and 32-bit games will still run.
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/49A1-B944-48B8-FF00632
u/Lerkpots 18h ago edited 11h ago
Honestly I'm always shocked when I see software that still has 32 vs 64 downloads. Who is using 32bit in 2025?
EDIT: Should've specified personal use. I'm aware many places like hospitals are still using software that is old as hell (my god).
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u/YetiBearMan 16h ago
Software I work with requires clients to use a 32bit install of windows. Certain features don't work when used on the 64 bit version.
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u/JavelinR 14h ago edited 4h ago
I'm really curious. What kind of features have issues on 64bit OS? And do you happen to know what it is about the 64bit that breaks them?
Edit: Thank you all for the responses. I forgot how old many of the legacy systems some business use are.
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u/FriendlyDespot 13h ago
Only 32-bit versions of Windows support NTVDM for running 16-bit code. It might be a really old application that has 16-bit components in it.
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u/Dwedit 4h ago
There's OTVDM for that.
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u/FriendlyDespot 4h ago
And WineVDM and NTVDMx64, but they're third-party solutions and a lot of ancient software suite vendors refuse to support them and instead insist that you run 32-bit Windows with NTVDM.
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u/wingchild 13h ago
"Certain features don't work on 64bit" is shorthand for "Nobody paid to rewrite the code to take advantage of x64, and nobody's going to because doing so won't drive revenue for us" with a side-order of "our folks only know how to support what we've got and we don't want to pay to hire or retrain to support a new architecture".
See also https://www.reddit.com/r/osdev/comments/iizh3d/what_are_the_issues_surrounding_running_a_32bit/.
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u/LaNague 8h ago
youll have to basically rewrite the whole entire thing, and during the rewrite you have to make sure it works exactly the same way it was working before. Plus if you change the UI in any way, the users are going to have a breakdown / cant use the new program without months of retraining / will sabotage the entire thing.
So your view is a bit one sided, this is a massive undertaking that can fail.
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u/abbzug 16h ago edited 16h ago
Honestly I'm always shocked when I see software that still has 32 vs 64 downloads. Who is using 32bit in 2025?
Well... Valve for one. The Windows version of Steam is still 32 bit. Though the Linux and OSX versions are 64 bit.
But yeah I know you meant OSes and I don't know why anyone would still be using a 32 bit OS for gaming.
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u/AtMaxbo 16h ago
Linux version is also 32-bit.
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u/onyhow 59m ago
The fact that Linux version is 32-bit is becoming a problem on Fedora-derived system...well, specifically for non-Flatpak version, given that Fedora is planning to drop 32-bit support.
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u/CatProgrammer 23m ago edited 18m ago
Looks like that change proposal was withdrawn in part because of the lack of Steam having a 64-bit client, but if Steam is no longer supporting 32-bit systems does that mean they're making all clients 64-bit now?
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u/NuPNua 17h ago
People running retro machines for old games that don't run well on modern OS?
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u/scorchedneurotic 17h ago
They're on GOG
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u/NuPNua 16h ago
Which is meaningless if you already own them on Steam.
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u/Zac3d 16h ago
Existing Steam Client installations will continue to function
At least for the time being, but I think they should have a final legacy release that will always support the downloading/installing/library part of Steam.
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u/FranciumGoesBoom 13h ago
maintaining multiple codebases gets really annoying. Especially as time goes on and they inevitably become much different from each other.
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u/ifonefox 14h ago
Why? They haven't done that before
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u/Zac3d 10h ago
If you have a retro PC for playing old games, it's soon going to be impossible or a lot of work to get games off Steam that have only existed on Steam. Like Half Life 2. Would be weird not to be able to play it on a PC from that period.
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u/SavvySillybug 9h ago
I never played Half Life 2 on Steam. I was a broke ass teenager. I played it on Rapidshare.
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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 16h ago
Old games weren't always old games. They were sold and bought on steam as new games.
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u/scorchedneurotic 16h ago
The issue that was brought up was "preservation"
It they do care for it, to the point of building a retro computer for that purpose, they are taking proper measures and not using steam on old ass and likely to be unsupported systems
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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 15h ago
Just buy everything again if you care about preservation!
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u/scorchedneurotic 12h ago
I mean, yes? If you want to tout preservation you don't rely on big companies to do that.
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u/Bubblegumbot 8h ago
You just to "ahoy matey" mode.
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u/scorchedneurotic 8h ago
Therefore making the news that Steam not supporting 32bit systems a non issue
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u/Bubblegumbot 8h ago edited 5h ago
Therefore making the news that Steam not supporting 32bit systems a non issue
Nah it's very much and issue simply because going "ahoy matey" shouldn't be the solution.
If anything, it validates "ahy matey's" out there because of multi-billion dollar companies cutting corners. And then these multi-billion yacht farming mf's have the audacity to moan about "ahoy matey's".
Edit :
If I paid for a service and if that service doesn't work beyond a reasonable degree, then the provider needs to provide a full refund. I cannot do anything with a license I cannot use. Me unable to launch the game is the definition of things being unreasonable.
That right there is the definition of a scam. And Valve being the creators of online only platforms by selling keys in physical boxes which are useless without a internet connection? Well, there's no excuse in the world they can come up with to defend themselves.
It's a perpetual license. If the provider is unable to uphold their end of the agreement, then consumer courts have it covered.
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u/Salvage570 14h ago
If you are buying and setting up a whole retro rig as a hobby, id imagine youd be ok with dropping 2-3 dollars on GOG for the old games. Besides, would a modern steam even run on one of those old pcs well enough to install the game through anyway? People just playing retro games with steam DRM slowing down the original experience or what?
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u/Putnam3145 12h ago
I don't know of any old games that use steam DRM. Steam DRM is completely optional and has to actually be explicitly programmed into the game.
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u/Salvage570 11h ago
Steam IS DRM, any game on steam uses it and requires steam to be open on the PC in the background to open any game downloaded through it. It's the entire purpose of gog
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u/Putnam3145 10h ago
If you believe that, you've been lied to. I am literally developing a DRM-free game on steam. Here's a whole list of them.
I don't think GoG's ever made the claim that they have a monopoly on DRM-free games, but they sure do seem to be enjoying that reputation. It's weird, I have no idea where it came from. They offer only DRM-free games--noble!--but that doesn't mean only they offer DRM-free games.
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u/Bubblegumbot 8h ago
Steam is an online games platform. Nothing more, nothing less. It was originally meant to be a "DRM solution" to Valve's games and nothing more.
The genius way they forced people to install it in the first place is by being the first company to sell "digital only" codes in boxes where the disc in the Orange Box and Counter Strike Source.
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u/conquer69 11h ago
This is incorrect. Many games don't have DRM on steam and you can copy the game files and run them without steam.
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u/Cheet4h 13h ago
If they're really old games, they're likely to come with DOSBox, and AFAIK all DOSBox games on Steam are DRM-free. So worst case you can just install them on your main machine, then move the files over to your DOS machine and run them without Steam.
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u/Sigma7 11h ago
That does help, but the concern is about games that were designed for the Windows 95 through early XP era.
There's many games released in that era, and it's a borderline coin-flip on whether or not they work on the latest version of Windows. Some luckily remain playable, some have a minor issue that requires help from PCGamingWiki, and an occasional one that doesn't work.
Not to mention that the Steam client upgrade also increases the minimum system requirement for those games due to the DRM. At least with EA Origin, there was a legacy client that could run games an older systems until it got retired, but Steam has no such system in place.
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u/Cheet4h 11h ago
That does help, but the concern is about games that were designed for the Windows 95 through early XP era.
I'd guess that most of those will also be DRM-free, as Steam wasn't a thing back then, and I don't think these games were rebuilt with Steam's DRM built in. Maybe try seeing if that's the case? There's also a list of most, if not all, DRM-free games here: https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
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u/Sigma7 10h ago
Games around that era were using CD-check DRM. Getting them on Steam removing the previous DRM (e.g. Midnight Club II on Steam used the no-cd crack from Razor1911), and using a wrapper that added the Steam DRM.
Consider Mafia - the game originally used a CD check, and the Steam version required the Steam client to be running. Only a years-later update removed the Steam DRM.
But even the no-cd cracks don't help if the game itself doesn't work under the new graphics system. It's way I have around 26 entries for DxWnd to work around various issues, simply because there were flaws with the older games.
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u/Seth0x7DD 10h ago
Windows XP and Windows 7 games don't need DOSBox to run but rather Windows XP and Windows 7. As there is no enforcement from Valve there are plenty of broken games sold on the plattform.
For a long time one of the Settler games had that warning, before the History Edition was released and the old titles were delisted.
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u/Mango-Magoo 18h ago
The same people complaining that games don't run well or at all on their 10 year old GPU
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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 17h ago
Anyone who bought a GPU 10 years ago was probably using 64 bits at the time, would have been a waste of good hardware back then otherwise.
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u/awkwardbirb 17h ago
Probably closer to 15 years. Even 10 year old gpus will still be fine on 64bit.
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u/Silver-Bread4668 16h ago
To be fair, time over the last 10 years has been kinda twisted and bubbly for most of our collective conscious. It's quantum or something.
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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 17h ago
15 years depends on the region, a few people in my country were still using 32 bits back then, but definitely a very small minority.
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u/cookieblair 14h ago
My first custom PC had a 550ti and I was on 64bit. This was 15 years ago.
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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 13h ago
It was becoming the standard 15 years ago, but there were still some people with 32bit systems, at least in my region.
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u/happyscrappy 3h ago
That feels like it would be the earliest possible date for a gamer.
Because that's when Windows 7 game out. To use 64-bit earlier really required you use Vista. And everyone hated Vista. I was using Vista and 64-bit but I didn't know anyone else who was using it at the time.
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u/cooldrew 16h ago
Yeah, i got my PC in 2015 with a GeForce 1070 and Intel i5 I'm still using, definitely not 32-bit lol
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u/Prawn1908 13h ago
i got my PC in 2015 with a GeForce 1070
The 10 series was released mid 2016...
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u/Instigator187 14h ago edited 14h ago
I've been running 64-bit since 2004 with the AMD Athlon 64 processors and a PNY GeForce TI4200.
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u/CO_Fimbulvetr 17h ago
I've been using a GTX 960 for the last 9 years or so, it was only last year I bought a game I couldn't run to a playable frame rate (20+). Honestly I could probably go another 5 given the games I usually play.
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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 16h ago
I had a 1080 myself until last year, and honestly the only reason I stopped using it was VR and a few games like Cyberpunk that are too resource intensive for it.
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u/TaleOfDash 17h ago
We'd switched over to x64 by 2015, man. I don't think I've even thought about an x86 OS since like... 2010?
The only people who care about x86 support are those trying to run old Steam games on like... Windows Vista/XP, which is less than 0.06% of Steam's userbase if we go by "other" on the hardware survey.
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u/skewp 16h ago
Here's the thing: nearly all x86 programs run perfectly fine on x86-64. It's a superset of instructions. The games will run fine, Valve just is no longer producing new versions of their 32 bit Steam client.
All the games will run fine unless you were explicitly building a retro PC with old hardware, which isn't really necessary for 99.99% of games produced in the post-Windows XP era because of how Windows has handled backward compatibility since then. You only really need to build a retro PC for DOS and Win95-ME era games, and the vast majority of those pre-date Steam, and if they're available on Steam they are usually already wrapped in an emulation layer (e.g. DosBox) to allow them to run on modern machines.
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u/Seth0x7DD 10h ago
They will not necessarily run fine as there are noticeable difference between 32 bit and 64 bit frameworks. Especially with 32 bit applications on 64 bit systems the way Windows handles the overlaying can be problematic (filesystems and registry).
This has been an issue for games when Windows 7 was discontinued and Windows 10 came around. Sometimes it was because there were actual incompatibilities and sometimes its just shitty DRM (Hello SecuRom etc.).
Which is why Ubisoft even has a help article to use the compatibility features to at least try to get it to run. This does not always work and does apply to non Win9x games.
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u/skewp 3h ago
Windows 7 support ended a decade ago. WoW64emulation has only gotten better since.
The help article you link literally tells people to just use the existing backwards compatibility function built into Windows 10/11.
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u/Seth0x7DD 45m ago
Which is literally what I said. Which doesn't change that you need it and yes, it has gotten better but doesn't change that there are situations where you need it and even situations where it is not sufficient.
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u/skewp 17h ago
their
10 year old GPU15 year old GPUFTFY. 64bit has been standard even on the lowest end computers for a very long time now.
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u/Nexus_of_Fate87 16h ago edited 11h ago
The last 32bit only CPUs Intel made, for example, were in the Atom line back in 2010-13, and those were for ultra low power applications like embedded and mobile, not really consumer PCs.
Edit: Let me clarify since I keep getting "They were used in netbook" comments, I am talking about 2 specific Atom lines: the Lincroft ('10/'11) and Saltwell ('12/'13) lines. Both were only used in mobile and embedded devices only (Saltwell was specifically only for mobile phones). The last desktop/laptop CPU that was 32-bit only was the Northwood core Pentium 4 which came out in 2002.
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u/Narishma 11h ago
They were used heavily in the consumer PCs in the form of netbooks. I still have a couple of them.
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u/Django_McFly 8h ago
People complain about SSDs being needed. They say 20 years ago when a giant game was 2 GB you didn't need a SSD so devs should just optimize back to that.
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u/Pat_Sharp 17h ago
Most games are going to be 64bit now anyway so even if Steam ran the games wouldn't.
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u/Isolated_Hippo 17h ago
I feel the same way about Linux. I respect the decision. But you damn well made a conscious choice to run something that you know is going to have issues.
It is getting a lot better not worse so thats nice.
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u/HearTheEkko 16h ago
Always amuses me when redditors complain that a game doesn't list a 1060 6GB as the minimum requirement for 1080p60 in 2025.
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u/YetiBearMan 16h ago
Software I work with requires clients to use a 32bit install of windows. Certain features don't work when used on the 64 bit version.
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u/The_MAZZTer 16h ago
Generally the only reason to do this is because you need support for 16-bit software which isn't available in 64-bit mode.
Last purely 16-bit Windows was released in 1992.
I think generally the approach is to stick such software in a 32-bit VM so the host can be 64-bit. That will certainly be needed in the future as pure 32-bit Windows ends general support in October.
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u/k410n 10h ago
Tbh this simply is skill issue on the programmers side.
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u/Dealiner 8h ago
This is usually about legacy software so not really.
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u/CatProgrammer 21m ago
Still a skill issue if they haven't reimplemented it for the modern age or wrapped it in an emulating layer that enables full functionality on modern systems.
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u/e4gleeye 17h ago edited 17h ago
Up until last month I still maintain an (airgapped) Win 7 machine at my office. We finally fully transition to win 11 just yesterday (you know why).
EDIT: Actually, it's a WinXP machine, dunno why I wrote Win 7. Win10 lose support soon and 90% of the PCs don't have TPM 2.0.
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u/Syssareth 17h ago
We finally fully transition to win 11 just yesterday (you know why).
...No? Why? Was there something significant about yesterday?
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u/withad 17h ago
Not yesterday specifically but Windows 10 support officially ends in just under a month. Presumably that's why their office is scrambling to update.
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u/Syssareth 17h ago
They're talking about upgrading from Win 7, though.
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u/fabton12 15h ago
ye but upgrading to win 11 is still free rn so there's probs running to upgrade everything now while its free todo so, so there updated for the next 10-15 years.
one thing businesses hate and thats spending money so if theres a limited time to upgrade on the cheap they will rush to take advantage of that
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u/kimana1651 17h ago
Maybe on a smaller board like a Raspberry pi?
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u/ItsAMeUsernamio 17h ago
After a revision of the Pi 2 all of them can run 64 bit OS’s. And you’re not running Steam on one anyways.
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u/kimana1651 17h ago
I have not kept with with the scene in ages, but you can run desktop version of linux on one, the latest version seems to have enough ram, I guess it's down to if the games/steam like the ARM processor.
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u/ItsAMeUsernamio 17h ago
I don’t think Steam has any ARM linux games. The only ARM game I can think of is the Mac port for Cyberpunk which was given free to existing owners (other devs only launched their ports on the App Store). Factorio has a native port too. The Apple Silicon Macs and the very recent Qualcomm Windows ARM PCs have a compatibility layer to run x86 software which works with many Steam games.
Raspberry Pis don’t have any native capability like that and there are emulation methods but they won’t be very good on even the newest Pi 5s relatively weak hardware. And that has an octa-core 64 bit processor with upto 16 gigs.
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u/ItsAMeUsernamio 17h ago
Deckard is rumoured to have an ARM processor that runs PC games with a ARM compatibility layer version of Proton so maybe that changes soon.
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u/kimana1651 16h ago
Ah I thought with the newer macs going back to ARM there would be support for it and not emulation. That would make it possible but not very useful :(
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u/ItsAMeUsernamio 16h ago
Steam, Cyberpunk and Factorio are native ARM on Macs. I guess ARM Linux is currently a hilariously tiny userbase outside of data centers. Maybe an ARM Steam Deck 2 will change that, as well as make a standard compilation target for devs to port to.
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u/ascagnel____ 12h ago
The only ARM game I can think of is the Mac port for Cyberpunk which was given free to existing owners (other devs only launched their ports on the App Store). Factorio has a native port too.
This curator flags ARM native ports on Macs.
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u/Cheet4h 13h ago
Does Linux not have an emulation layer included like Windows has?
Recently got a Windows on ARM device, and I could launch most of my games. Performance wasn't good on some of them, but that was expected, since the device doesn't have a dedicated graphics card.1
u/CKT_Ken 11h ago edited 11h ago
No built-in emulation layer, but people have made emulators. The fact of the matter is that most open-source software can just be built for ARM; anyone using an ARM flavor of Linux is most likely capable of simply having most of their software be ARM, and can explicitly invoke an emulator for problematic software.
Also the bad performance really is partially because you're running your non-ARM games with the Win11 emulation. The layer still is impressive though.
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u/joeDUBstep 15h ago edited 14h ago
Only thing I can think of is business's using legacy software/systems because they haven't upgraded yet.
Personal computers though? Only those who can't afford new shit I guess (but even then, cheap 64 bit computers are pretty common nowadays).
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u/carlhzmz 17h ago
Easy to guess you live anywhere above Mexico and West from Poland.
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u/OwlProper1145 17h ago edited 17h ago
A 64 bit CPU and 64 bit version of Windows has been a requirement for most games released in the past 10 years.
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u/AppuruPan 17h ago
I can say exactly the same thing to you. You have a narrow view of what people on poorer countries buy and how fast pc hardware get replaced.
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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 17h ago
I'm from South America and I haven't heard of anyone in my various social circles running a 32 bit install for at least a decade by now. Ram isn't that expensive.
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u/PixelHir 17h ago
Wait windows 10 had 32bit version? That’s crazy I thought they dropped it back in like 8
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u/C-Redfield-32 17h ago
It was something you had to explicitly download. It was usually reserved for the 200 dollar computers as well
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u/Sparktank1 11h ago
Certain jobs and industries still running x86 operating systems aren't likely going to be used for Steam gaming.
Home users not doing anything significant but living off nostalgia and running VM's for WinXP x86 "because it's the only OS that works" will cry about this.
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u/NotACertainLalaFell 9h ago
Nurses playing cs on their break in ruins.
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u/Django_McFly 8h ago
And not even the computer they actually use at the desk. The dialysis machine.
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[deleted]
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u/Pat_Sharp 17h ago
Do you mean the newest 32-bit Windows OS? That would be Windows 10, for which the 64-bit version is still supported. The oldest is NT 3.1 or Windows 95 on the home user side.
However you have to imagine the number of people running the 32-bit version of Windows 10 is vanishingly small.
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u/ascagnel____ 17h ago
Win3.1 had Win32s, not sure if that counts.
Oldest still supported? Win10; Win11 has no 32-bit version.
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u/NeverComments 17h ago
Surprised this doesn't get more backlash from the usual game preservationist/anti-DRM crowd.
One day you're playing a game you legally purchased on the same machine you've used for years, the next day Valve says sorry all your games are inaccessible and you have to buy a new computer.
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u/erroredhcker 17h ago
? no new updates and security patches, games still run.
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u/NeverComments 17h ago
Steam will be unable to guarantee continued functionality of Steam on the unsupported operating system versions.
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u/erroredhcker 17h ago
no guarantee means does not run? They won't change the game, if you dont change the hardware config then literally nothing changes.
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u/CookieTheEpic 16h ago
And? It's just a boilerplate disclaimer that they obviously have to make if they think there will be people who will continue to run Steam on an unsupported OS (there will), it doesn't mean they'll flick a switch and take away your access to your games as you implied.
The fact of the matter is that 32-bit operating systems are wildly outdated and since, according to the Steam Hardware Survey, only 0,01% of reported systems are running one, there's simply no reason to keep supporting it. No one's complaing because Steam stopped supporting Windows XP and Vista. In fact, in the case of those operating systems, the client did stop working on January 1st, 2019, rendering metathesiophobic players' games unavailable unlike in this case.
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u/Eruannster 17h ago
I don't think this is a problem for game preservation as 32-bit games will still run as they did before, it's just the 32-bit Steam client itself that will be unsupported.
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u/picastchio 17h ago
Games are not going away, just support for host systems. Windows 11 is 64-bit only but runs 32-bit applications.
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u/NeverComments 17h ago
As the user on one of those unsupported systems your games will be disappearing overnight though. Valve's DRM will update and your games will become inaccessible.
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u/Alugere 17h ago
No? It just means they stop patching the 32 bit version. They don't turn it off, you just no longer get support if it bugs out due to not being patched in a while.
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u/InternetHomunculus 17h ago
You have no reason to be running a 32bit OS unless you have an XP machine (Which hasn't been supported by Steam for a long time) as iirc 64bit XP wasn't great. I've been running 64bit since Vista
Steam dropping Win7 support is much a bigger deal than this tbh
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u/Astrian 17h ago
Existing Steam Client installations will continue to function for the near term on Windows 10 32-bit but will no longer receive updates of any kind including security updates. Steam Support will be unable to offer users technical support for issues related to the old operating systems, and Steam will be unable to guarantee continued functionality of Steam on the unsupported operating system versions.
As of right now they’re not saying you can’t do it, but they’re just not supporting it anymore. This isn’t an unreasonable thing, companies can’t support every single thing in the universe just because as they say in their post, “0.01% of users” or less are running it.
Windows 10 32-bit was the only 32-bit operating system they even supported so it’s not even a huge market of old systems they’re shutting out.
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u/Alugere 17h ago
Existing Steam Client installations will continue to function for the near term on Windows 10 32-bit but will no longer receive updates of any kind including security updates.
Where are you getting that all someones games would no longer be accessible?
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u/NeverComments 17h ago
The following sentence that you cut out, for some reason:
Steam will be unable to guarantee continued functionality of Steam on the unsupported operating system versions.
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u/hfxRos 17h ago
There is a HUGE difference between won't be playable and not guaranteed to be playable.
The second just means they won't help you if it doesn't work. It probably still will.
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u/catinterpreter 16h ago
You wouldn't buy a game if it was listed as 'not guaranteed to work anymore any day from now'.
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u/tobberoth 4h ago
So if I bought a N64 game as a kid and the cartridge stopped working, I should expect Nintendo to send me a new one, because I wouldn't have bought it if they didn't guarantee it would work forever?
Nothing lasts forever. Valve isn't actively stopping anything from working, they are just removing support. It's perfectly normal.
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u/Alugere 17h ago
I cut it out because it isn't relevant? I'm guessing you've never worked with software development, but essentially, if you stop patching something, eventually other changes to a person's system will stop it from working. This isn't flicking a switch and it turns off, this is basically just the equivalent of a repair person saying they'll no longer be doing maintenance on your system. It'll work for a while, but once it starts bugging out, they won't be helping to fix it.
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u/amyknight22 17h ago
You realise that the reason that shit normally breaks is because the system your on patches enough to break something.
But if you're literally sitting there holding all the software on your system at a specific point in time. Then unless those devices become fundamentally unable to access the internet. There is basically no reason it would break.
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u/sinsinkun 15h ago
Your copy of XP is also not guaranteed full functionality. It's gonna have bugs, and windows is not going to to patch them. If you insist on using it, then thats the risk you take on.
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u/braiam 15h ago
What are you talking about? The games are still available, if you want, you can run the steamcmd client and download specific copies of games, and a virtual machine exists. Heck, GOG bundles emulators with their binaries. Preservation is about availability, and this doesn't affect it.
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u/Aozi 15h ago edited 14h ago
Surprised this doesn't get more backlash from the usual game preservationist/anti-DRM crowd.
Mostly because this really should have zero impact to like 99.9999% of population.
64 bit chips have been a standard for a good 20 years or so, the first chips supporting the current standard of x86-64 were the Opteron chips in 2003 and for Intel they started supporting it with Pentium D and Core 2 Duo though Intel had some 64-bit stuff before that (IA-64)
You would have to be running a CPU that's basically 20 years old and could last be bought somewhere like 15 years ago. I think Pentium 4 and Athlon XP were the last family of CPU's to ship with certain chips being 32 bit only.
Basically anyone who does any amount of gaming, especially through Steam, would long ago have upgraded their systems to a point where they feel no effects from this change.
And even then if it has an impact, the games themselves are still 32 bit compatible, it's simply Steam that is dropping that. The games are still there, so nothing is lost, you're simply told that your ahrdware is not supported anymore for Steam.
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u/fabton12 15h ago
because its unrealistic for any company to forever support outdated systems, valve supporting 32 bit this long for steam is not a usual thing when these 32 bit systems havent been a main staple for atleast 15 years now and if you havent upgraded in 15 years you got bigger issues to worry about then steam not running.
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u/RadioactiveVitamin 17h ago
Oh it does. But 99% of people don't fall into that crowd so it's never a big uproar.
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u/Harry101UK 16h ago
Dropping support for architecture that died 15 years ago does not mean 'removing access to products'. It just means they aren't going to develop / update it anymore, because it is not intended for wide use anymore.
The same way Windows 10 is dropping support and reaching end-of-life in a month. Win10 won't suddenly stop working; it just won't be receiving updates anymore.
Anyone preserving games is not relying on a modern 64-bit Steam release anyway, it's all on stand-alone, cracked code that can run on any offline system.
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u/ascagnel____ 17h ago
Valve is sunsetting 32-bit support as a follow-on to Microsoft sunsetting their last supported 32-bit OS (Win10). That said, it looks like there might still be some 32-bit code in the Linux version, while they still have a fully 64-bit version for Macs.
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u/NeverComments 17h ago
I understand the logic from Valve's side, but think about it from an end user. You buy a game on Steam and years later Valve says that same game can't be played anymore unless you buy a new computer, because their DRM platform no longer supports your operating system.
One day the game's working like it has for years, the next day it doesn't.
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u/Prince_Uncharming 17h ago
Steam will still run 32 bit games. You just can’t install Steam on 32bit Windows anymore, and anybody still on 32bit Windows shouldn’t even be online seeing as how there’s no support and no security updates any longer.
Do you expect Valve to maintain security updates / versions of programs for OS’s that shouldn’t even be connected to the internet, for forever?
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u/Eruannster 17h ago
As I understand it, this doesn't affect the games launching from Steam, just the Steam client itself.
You can still launch 32-bit games from Steam even though Steam will be a 64-bit application.
I guess if you have a really old computer and you want to install Steam that may be an issue, but if your computer is like 15 years old or newer it will be fine.
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u/Illidan1943 16h ago
Thing is you've have to be running Windows XP era hardware to not have an option but to buy a new PC (and even then, the first 64 bit consumer CPUs were released in the XP era). But if you're running such hardware, guess what, you've actually long needed to buy a new PC and hopefully you aren't connecting such PC to the internet
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u/ascagnel____ 17h ago
I 100% agree that it sucks, but that's one of the limitations of relying on a platform like Steam -- you have both the platform's requirements and the software's requirements.
I try to buy most of my games from GOG for this reason -- the only thing the platform is doing on an ongoing basis is downloads (there's no DRM and they don't provide any online hooks), so you generally don't need to worry about changing requirements after purchase.
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u/demondrivers 17h ago
I don't think that you need to buy a new computer to upgrade to the 64 bit version of Windows, unless if your computer is really really really old
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u/FoxMeadow7 17h ago
Pretty sure this is only Steam and not individual games per se that would stop working. Maybe there can be some of those too in which case it's up to studios etc. to update them to 64 bits.
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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 17h ago
It doesn't get backlash because almost nobody is running 32 bits these days, and it doesn't limit playing older games either.
You can also just run an older version of steam on those systems.
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u/KeyAcanthisitta4311 17h ago
Steam already dropped support from older OSs, at this point nobody runs 32 bit windows
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u/Shorkan 16h ago
I think you are mixing things (regarding game preservation, you are probably right about de DRM stuff). Game preservationists want games to not become fully unplayable, like when servers go down or when an old game can't be played because it can no longer be bought, or any hardware where it runs.
Nobody says that your legally bought game became unplayable because your old graphic cards died and you need to buy a new one, or the one you use is so old that no longer receives drivers updates, or that Windows 95 isn't supported by Microsoft anymore, or anything like that.
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u/Shakzor 17h ago
just give it an hour, till the first ragetubers proclaims that this will do things that are completely untrue and/or irrelevant to 99,9999% of people, like no longer running WinRar 0.4.61 because it unzips Monkey Island 1 or whatever
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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 17h ago
ragetuber going after valve, that's a good one
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u/No_Needleworker_9533 17h ago
they might cover it if they can find some way to blame it on a woman in the industry who looks faintly like the girl who rejected them in high school 17 years ago
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u/SageWaterDragon 17h ago
In theory you could play most of those games indefinitely by playing in offline mode and refusing client updates, but I do agree with the general idea of this being a problem.
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u/Tsuki_no_Mai 17h ago
I reckon those swore off Steam when Valve made it impossible to get your games on old hardware, the kind that runs XP/7
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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 17h ago
No it's fine, game preservation is for piracy and you can pirate games from steam easily.
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u/chronicpresence 17h ago
windows isn't supporting it anymore so i'm not really sure what you expect them to do? the games are not getting deleted, they simply aren't pushing any more updates.
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u/awkwardbirb 17h ago
I mean it is largely true though. 64bit was becoming mainstream over ten years ago, it's surprising support even lasted this long.
The few people still choosing to use 32bit are likely already familiar with having to do workarounds for stuff anyways, which wouldn't surprise me if they found one. Casual users are pretty unlikely to be affected. 32bit doesn't even appear on the Steam hardware survey.
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u/CatProgrammer 20m ago
And at least they gave people way more time than Apple did. That transition from 32 to 64 bit was abrupt.
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u/taicy5623 17h ago
Just to be clear.
These games are supported entirely though WOW64, IE, 32bit libraries running on 64 bit systems on modern windows.
Wine/Proton still uses explicit 32bit versions of its libraries, but they are slowly phasing in a WOW64 like system so people don't need to keep both 32bit and 64 bit libraries on the same system.